Sacred caves
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2007
1
9
33
Trip End
Ongoing
San Ignacio, Belize
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
San Ignacio is a small town on the Belizean side of the border with Guatemala, and we stayed at a little eco-lodge, and it actually seemed quite eco, a little way out of town which had a great collection of books and so allowed me to do a little catching up on Mayan history from a non-guide source. The place also has frisbee golf, free internet, a butterfly house and a pet tarantula. I liked it there. Unfortunately the river was in flood, meaning that the ferry wasn't going, meaning that we couldn't get to the local ruins or float down the river on an inner tube. A bunch of us went for a walk instead. I went as a conditioning / acclimatisation exercise. San Ignacio is supposed to be in the mountains and cooler. But simply sitting in the shade had me dripping sweat in the most disgusting way. The humidity must have been as high as it is possible to get without being under water. But it wasn't too bad down by the river. Either the climate was better or the acclimatisation was a much swifter process than expected. We mooched along the side of the river for 5 kms or so, admiring local wildlife as we went. This ran to one grey heron, a lot of white egrets, lots of basilisk lizards (which, for Australians out there, resemble water dragons, even to the extent of running on water). It is very pretty countryside; very green with lots of tall trees and some cows scattered around for good measure. These may be the first cows that I have seen since leaving New Zealand. The most interesting part was finding an enormous leaf cutter ant colony that had actually worn a track into the ground about 4 inches wide and which continued for 15 meters or so before splitting in three and gradually getting fainter. I gave up trying to find the end of the track after about 50 meters, by which time it had petered out to a trail but there was no sign of where the ants were bringing their leaves from.
Actun Tunichil Muknal
This Mayan name means cave of the stone sepulcher. When an American called Tom Miller explored the substantial cave network in 1986 he discovered that it was an old Mayan site that had not been touched since the last shaman walked out of it in perhaps the tenth century AD. It is a spectacular cave and site and features in every documentary on the Mayans. A flick through back catalogues of national geographic ought to reveal a few articles with far better photographs than the ones I can show.
Archaeologists have worked the site but without disturbing the surface artifacts, so as it stands today the tourist can see the entire site pretty much as Tom Miller did.
The archaeological site is buried deep inside the cave system. It is necessary to swim into the cave mouth and then wade, at times up to neck deep, up the river for perhaps 45 minutes. With headlights and a guide this is one thing, but it is absolutely pitch dark and it must have been a very different journey for the Mayans, carrying all the materials required for their rituals and solemnly believing that the cave was an entry to the underworld. I don't suppose that anyone knows how many people would have been in the party or whether it would have been lit with torches or not (although navigation must surely have been impossible without some light). The archaeological site is then accessed by a scramble up from the riverbed to a level of caverns that are invisible from below.
Accessing the site is impressive in its own right. The most fantastic stalactites descend from the roof ooze from the walls almost everywhere in whites, browns and greys and even some reddish ones, forming curtains or bulges like brain coral or even just conventional stalactites. Neither words nor pictures will do them justice, but the access route itself is the most interesting cave I have ever visited.
It is harder yet to describe the archaeological area. We must walk in socks to avoid damaging the site either with shoes or by skin oils. You emerge onto a level where there are numerous pottery remains. The pots contained offerings and were broken at the conclusion of the ceremony. This is the oldest part of the site but appears to have largely been free of seepage at this point and the pots lie as they must have been left. Further in you come to an enormous chamber littered with pots. With all lights off, and just one torch scanning the floor the exposed pots are striking. These were not used for domestic purposes - every pot contained an offering. And here we meet our first skull; just lying on the surface of the clay where it has been for the last 1000 years.
Carefully avoiding artifacts (the archaeologists have picked a route out for us, but it comes perilously close to some items) we continue up this second chamber where two skeletons have been mixed in together. There has been some water movement here and it is not known whether they were part of the same ceremony or not, and the bones have been partly mineralised in calcium carbonate. The skeletons lie at almost right angles to each other. This almost ends the second chamber.
The third chamber has less obvious artifacts, although pottery is still visible. It is now called the cathedral and is indeed splendid. At the end is placed a ladder to another chamber, accessible only through a very narrow gap between rocks. The Mayans must have been looking hard to find this chamber. It is the smallest of them all and the one most recently used. A few ceramics are easily visible, but this is not a wide open chamber like the others and it culminates in another sacrifice. Unusually this is a woman, and her skeleton is clearly recognisable but heavily coated in calcium carbonate. It is after her that the cave gets its name. Nearby is the skull of a child, grossly distorted now by the coating of lime.
This is an extremely interesting place to visit, but not a little sad. I suppose that no one knows the real story of what went on, but it is hard not to imagine a tragic story, from the fact that the most recent use is deepest into the cave. I imagine a drought stricken or otherwise beleaguered people taking ever more desperate efforts to satisfy their gods. Sending their shamans and elites ever closer to the underworld and making ever more elaborate offerings to set things right. And to no avail, as the cave was abandoned. The timing of the last use fits reasonably well with the collapse of the great Mayan centres everywhere. I would guess that the offerings were to Chac, for rain and good crops; and that they didn't work. Now multiply that story for a society of many millions, all dependent on the same style of living, seemingly commonly affected by drought and with no solution but to appease apparently unhappy gods.
Caves were sacred and would only be used for rituals. Our (Mayan) guide told us that caves are still revered by Mayans and that this one certainly would not be open to tourists if Mayans could make the decision. The cave was an entry to the underworld, called Xibalba. The ceiba tree (possibly kapok) was the three levels of the Mayan cosmos, with its roots in the underworld. Stalactites were interpreted as the ceiba's roots. I am not yet clear on how this fits with the the world riding on the back of a giant crocodile like reptile, but then I have also been told that the earth was supported by four animals (crab, turtle, toad, armadillo?).
The Mayan creation story has some curious resemblances to the Christian equivalent. The full version is long and quite complicated. Google "popol vuh" for a more detailed explanation, but this is the ersatz tourist version told to me. The first creation was made because the gods wished to be praised. Man was fashioned out of the earth. But he did not praise the gods sufficiently and was destroyed. The gods then fashioned man from wood, and this was an improvement but also fell short of the mark. These men were turned into monkeys. The gods then tried maize mixed with some of their own blood, and the result was man. He was too powerful and so they created women as well to make sure that man was not a threat. (There is something about forbidden fruit too which I forget). Note the none too subtle hint about failing to honour the gods. I don't know whether the Maya would have thought that they were being punished for inadequate praise, but it seems a fair bet even with their belief that everything happened in cycles and theirs wasn't due until December 21, 2012.
